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Mexico's markets offer the best dried beans in the greatest variety of anywhere in the galaxy. My personal favorite are the Peruanos. They're sold mostly along the Pacific side of Mexico including the interior mainland, and you can get them in practically any size market. In dried form - in bag or bulk - they are the size and shape of small pinto beans, but whereas pintos are pinkish-tan with dark brown specks, Peruanos are a uniform pale greenish-yellow color. When cooked, Peruanos turn a light tan color. Their flavor is as delicate as their hue, milder than pinto beans with a creamier texture.

I'd love to include a photo of Peruanos to document their yummy yumminess. But I ate them all. The beans, not the photos. So go here to see what I'm talking about.

I haven't yet found Peruanos in any US market. I have no idea why not; they'd be popular with lots more than Mexican food. Below the fold you'll find GB's basic recipe for cooking Peruanos in a pressure cooker, though if you can't find any Peruanos you could experiment with another bean variety of your preference.

Downtown La Libertad, Ecuador, has the most extensive fish market open to the regular fish-buying public that we've seen since Ensenada, Mexico. Whatever's running offshore, will quickly find its way into the fishing fleet's nets and thence to the Mercado de Mariscos. Any local taxicab can take you there, no problemo.

Have you ever been to the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle? The atmosphere at the Mercado de Mariscos is similar: well-controlled chaos but without the fish-tossing. Which Ecuadoreans find unseemly. Anyway, all the people (mostly men) selling their fish at the Mercado de Mariscos are shouting out what they're selling, and their prices, to everyone who walks in. I have enough trouble understanding one voice speaking Spanish to me; 5 voices hollering all at once about names of fish I don't recognize, is more than I can manage. On the other hand, a place like this is GB's Disneyland.

In Mexico duck is called pato. You only find it at European style restaurants. It is also very expensive. In La Paz or La Cruz we pay about 240 peso, about $18-20 usd, for an imported duck. I have not seen any Mexican ducks in any of the markets. Probably because I only shop for food on the coasts and not inland. There are probably lots of ducks running around Mexico City.

I love to cook duck - it is difficult to do correctly, with the skin a nice crisp brown, a very small layer of fat beneath, and the meat moist and still a bit rare. I have made quite a mess of cooking duck over the years. When I buy a duck my lovely wife will almost always yell at me “no duck on board! - too greasy! She is right about that. But like everything, its all in the cooking technique. When we had a house, many a time duck fat was splattered everywhere, and the house was filled with smoke from too high of heat.

On the boat - I try to keep duck cooking a bit more simple - yet still end up with the right product. Here is the recipe for a duck I just cooked while at anchor here in the El Mogote in front of La Paz. Marianne liked it a lot and did not really yell too much when I was making it - the no fuss duck….

The key to this dish is the duck stock. I like to bone out the duck - its too complicated to go into this completely here. But I like to remove the breast with the leg and thigh still attached. The I separate the leg and thigh, removing the thigh bone. Then cleaning up the fat around the edges. You should be left with two pieces of meat. Removing the duck thigh, but leaving the leg bone attached, makes for a nice presentation. I remove the wings and cook those also - but they could just as easily go into the stock - not much meat there.

The stock

Take the duck carcass, including the neck, and sauté in the pressure cooker at low heat for about 30 minutes, until the duck turns to brown. This is a slow rendering of the fat from the duck. When completed, the duck should be pretty evenly brown. Pour off the fat. Add the celery, carrots and onions and stir around for about 5 minutes, add the garlic, then degalaze with about ½ cup wine. Add about one quart of water, the paste and herbs. Cook on high heat - 15 psi - in the pressure cooker for about 25 minutes.

When cooled a bit, strain the stock into another pan and slowly reduce to 1 cup - this might take up to 30 minutes - don‘t let it run away and burn.

The duck

Score the duck skin in several paces for each piece and fry, skin side down, on med/low heat, covered, for about 20 minutes, turning once. This will render the duck fat off. Watch the duck to make sure it does not get too brown. You are essentially pan roasting the duck. I used to flash fry the duck to brown the skin, then finish in the oven. This is way too much hassle, plus you loose all the toasty goodness that is left at the bottom of the pan.

The sauce

Remove the duck pieces, set aside covered with foil. Pour out and reserve the duck fat - this is precious stuff - I use it to fry potatoes later. Add some chopped onions and garlic - you are using this as a substitute for shallots - which tend to be tough to find in MX. Stir around for a bit, and deglaze with more wine. Add the duck stock, and the rest of the ingredients. Reduce to as silky consistency - this should take no more than five minutes.

Presentation

I like to slice the duck breast, then serve the cooked leg along side, covered with the sauce. This is a pretty good size serving - but one duck really only feeds about 2-3 people. I like to serve this with a simple brown and wild rice blend, and a few veggies on the side.

its been along time since I wrote anything on the blog. A lot of things have happened in 2009, including:

Marianne’s Mom dieing - which caused me to spend the month of April alone in Guaymas.

I delivered a Bayliner 40 with George from Mazatlan to Oxnard. This delivery was so fraught with calamities, breakdowns, and delays it’s a complete novel in itself - I will try to write about it soon. During this time, Marianne got to spend a month by herself in Guaymas.\Our engine decided to quit running at 2000 hours, requiring a complete rebuild. It turns out that it was installed incorrectly, with a six inch clearance between the muffler and the exhaust elbow.. Our insurance called it a latent defect - that did not mean they would cover it though - we now have new insurance. Yanmar specifications require a 12 inch clearance. Marianne went into this in detail in earlier posts. Needless to say - it shook a bit of the confidence we have in our fine Malo sailboat. We are still waiting to hear from Malo.

We were delayed two weeks getting out of Mazatlan in order to get a new spray shield built, and security bars installed. We had great workmanship in Maz - but we were sitting around waiting for the workers to show up for two weeks, paying those high season rates. Also - I got to have a crown and a root canal done in my teeth - I found out about this the day we day we found out about the engine - seemed somewhat fitting - my teeth and engine both break down on the same day.

We crossed the sea on a great windward sail. We had over 40 ours under sail to windward between a 45 and 60 degree angle. However, we could not get our new Sailomat 760 to work. We added the self steering last year, and have been trying to get it to work since. Granted - we have not worked too hard. I seem to prefer to head for an anchorage in the afternoon when the wind finally blows , since I get so thirsty.

On the lighter side - I installed a 3 gal tank to hold gin - yes - a gin tank. This is a great success. I push a button, and gin pumps out of the tank. The problem is you can’t really tell how much gin your are drinking. We emptied the tank in about five weeks, but I think other people helped out - at least it seemed so when I awoke from my coma. See above to see why we emptied the gin tank in five weeks. The next project to install a back up gin tank - or at least a monitoring gauge.

We pulled into La Paz, and have spent one week getting our FM-3 visa exchanged for a regular tourist visa - this took 3 trips to immigration., which is pretty good This was a great bit of luck - thanks to a lovely evening with our good friends Linda and Geoff, we all figured out that we could save a few hundred bucks by getting a tourist visa for $26, rather than an FM-3 for $108. We are exiting the county in early March. To head for Ecuador.

The death of the Mom and the engine were the big blows of the year. By the time we were out of Maz, we had spent about $15,000 - oh yes - we also did a complete bottom job, grinding off 8 years of paint, new epoxy barrier coat, shaft seal, stern tube, etc. We spent six weeks on the hard in Maz.

We are sitting in the El Mogote now waiting out a norther. The El Mogote is the anchorage off La Paz. It has a lot of current. So you can have 20+ knots of wind on you, but the current will be pushing your boat in the opposite direction. Its very strange. Lots of permacruisers live in the El Mogote and never go anywhere - I thing the current, the wind, and the heat, make them a little mad - I mean not angry, just crazy.

We are slowly getting our shit together though. In La Paz we had our sail repaired, corrected an infection which developed in my new tooth ( see reasons for gin tank above), got our Coast Guard certification faxed to us (this took five tries), and cooked a duck. We will meet the manufacturer of the Sailomat in La Cruz in Banderas Bay in early January and finally figure out why this $4,500 device does not work. Hopefully, we will hook up with some friends further south, and make it to Huatulco in mid February, then travel inland to Oaxhaca and then on Chiapas for a two week inland tour.

Actually, when I think about it all, it does not sound too bad. Just life on the boat - not a whole lot different than land - just a different set of problem solving. Engines blow up, you get stalled waiting for things to happen. That’s why I have a gin tank - it makes the days pass more quickly - its fun to push the button and make the gin come out of the bulkhead, and my friends are endlessly amused and scandalized. Now - if I could only afford to fill it with Bombay Sapphire instead of Oso Negro - to do that I would have to get a job, or at least a few more boat deliveries.

If you go fishing in the Sea of Cortez - whether by dinghy, snorkeling with a speargun,or via the mother ship, chances are you will catch some kind of critter and it'll most likely be yummy. Here's how GB typically processes his catch, using the broad flat space of our forward bow.

We have for today's demonstration a Pacific porgy (top) and a finescale triggerfish (bottom), caught in July 2009 at Puerto Refugio, north end of Isla Angel de la Guarda. Here, GB starts with the triggerfish and fillets the first side. His first cut is behind the dorsal fin, running downward at an angle behind the gill cover toward the the midline and a bit below the level of the pectoral fin, taking care to not cut or puncture the nasty innards in the belly. The angle of this first cut is most visible in the third photo in that row above.

The second cut is along the dorsal spine back toward the tail. The third cut goes downward from in front of the tail toward the belly but stops a bit past the fish's midline - again, this is most visible in the third pic. The last cut runs along the lower midline, roughly parallel to the belly, between aft of the gill cover and forward of the tail. The goal with all these cuts is to harvest as large a fillet as possible while leaving the innards intact so as not to contaminate the edible flesh.

Next, GB flips the fish over to remove the second fillet the same way. Finally, he tosses overboard what's left of the fish - usually, the skin; and the head, spine, innards and tail all in one piece - and I give our thanks to Neptune. Typically the remains are quickly scavenged by seagulls and bullseye pufferfish. Makes you think twice about falling overboard...

Triggerfish have a fairly firm, white-ish flesh that works very well in tacos. If you catch a hogfish with its very white, delicate flesh, you may want to prepare it as you would a fillet of sole. (That's a male hogfish with the teeth and the big forehead bump, in the top of that pic over on the left.) A skipjack's dark-red, almost purple flesh is too heavily oily to be to everyone's liking but it stands up well to assertive flavors like a lime, garlic, onion and soy marinade*, or BBQ smoking; basically approach it as you would beef. A yellowtail jack's, yellowfin tuna's, or dorado's (mahi-mahi's) flesh makes excellent sashimi, sushi, cooked fillets - you name it. That there in the photo on the right is a recently deceased yellowtail jack in the bottom and up along one side of a 5-gallon bucket.

* The Propane Chef recommends that when "cooking" an oily fish like
skipjack in lime juice - say, as you would for ceviche - you first cover the fillet with lime juice, let
it chemically-cook the fish, then pour off the lime juice and the fish oil the lime juice has drawn out. Next,
cover the fish with fresh lime juice, olive oil (to replace the pungent fish-oil
flavor with a fruitier, more fragrant oil flavor), your other marinade ingredients,
and continue with your recipe.

We have been in the Sea of Cortez since November 1,
enjoying the fine winter weather.It had
been a great cruse, and we met some real interesting people.The problem was the bottom kept getting
foul.I was cleaning it every six weeks,
then every four, and now every three.It
was a mess down there, being two years since our last haul out.

“Let’s sail over to San Carlos and do the bottom paint" we said, so off we went.

We arrived in late in March, and hung around the anchorage waiting for about 10 days for the
tides to turn so we could get into the Marina Seca boatyard.This was not a problem, since it took us 7
days just to get the paint.We hauled and
everything went fine.Marina Seca is a
great place to do work – you can pour acetone on the ground and sand to your
heart’s content.We splashed and came
over to Marina Singular in Guaymas, with the intention of taking the train
north through Copper Canyon

Two days after we got here Marianne got the call that her
mother was real sick, and it was time to come home.Well, Jeffie had been real sick for a long
time, so this was a little expected.MS
jumped a flight out of San Carlos
to Phoenix then rode with her
brother down to El Paso

Three days later Jeffie died.A sad time for all.But she lived a long 88 years, overcame a lot
of medical adversities to live independently for most of it, and seemed very
satisfied with her place in the world.She seemed very contented , and had many activities and friends.We are all going to go sometime, and this was
her time.

So now, three weeks later, MS is still in El
Paso. There is
a lot of stuff to go through - 49 years of belongings in one house, and sort out what the
family was going to do.Also, since she
is in the states, we turned this into our yearly buying binge, so naturally,
you are waiting for supplies to show up – then there is the doctor’s
appointment.She won’t be back until May
2.

I think my point is that cruising is not what most people
think it is.It’s just like the life in
the states, without all of the conveniences.You need paint you have to sail a hundred miles. You wait a week for tides. People get sick and you have to go and its
planes and automobiles to get there.Being full time people on board we carry our life and all of its complications with us.

We are in a real good spot though – the marina at Singular
Guaymas is great – nice town to be in, good provisioning, etc.It’s just not like being out at anchor,
fishing, swimming, and beach walking.Also – I am alone on the boat, which lets me tear it up and do things,
but there was not that much to do so I am about polishing the stainless again.I made this great soup the other day….

The view at Singular - they all look alike.

Guaymas Gumbo

Guaymas is famous for its shrimp.The shrimping fleet is huge in the harbor
here, but most of it is in mothballs.Still, you can go down to the market and get a kilo of large shrimp for
about $10. Here is the recipie:

1 qt Chicken Stock

1 cooked chicken breast - shredded

1 chorizo Espanol – sliced –this is a dried Spanish sausage

8 - 12 oz clean shrimp, split

1 tomato - chopped

1/2 squash- chopped in ¼ inch bites

1 red pepper - sliced

5 pickled yellow peppers – chopped with the seeds removed

1 lime - juiced

¼ cup chopped cilantro

My trusty crockpot - five years old and still cooking away

Chicken Stock

Roast the leftover carcass’ of two chicken in the oven for
about 45 minutes until brown at about 425.This step makes a huge difference in how the stock tastes.Usually I am lazy and throw the raw bones in
the crock pot – but, I’ve got all this time on my hands…..

Combine the bones, ½ onion, 1 carrot and 1 stalk celery, 4
bay leaves, and 1 clove garlic, 5 black peppercorns in the crockpot and let
simmer for 8 hours.Alternatively, use a
pressure cooker for 20 minutes on high – 15 psi.Chill the stock and skim the fat off.

Into the stock, add all of the ingredients except the shrimp
and the cilantro.Bring to a boil for
about 3-5 minutes.Add the shrimp and
cilantro and turn the heat off, cover for a couple of minutes.

I though this was real tasty – it’s quite easy to do.The slow part is the stock, but I am always
making stock in my trusty crock pot, so no problem.

You can’t get tomato paste in Mexico - or at least the parts of Mexico I have been to. There are a lot of tomato products in the store, but they all seem to be “puree of tomato with a lot of salt added”. You can get canned tomatoes, but they are very expensive - like $3.50 per 24 oz can or so.

MX cuisine does not have a lot of call for tomato paste - but I use a lot of it in making soups stews, and sauces. So I decided to make my own.

Tomatoes are pretty cheap in Sinaloa - tomato capital of Mexico. I can get a kilo of plum tomatoes in Mazatlan for about $1.25. So, here is the recipie.

Take 1.5 kilo of plum tomatoes, blanch them in boiling water for a minute and take the skins off. Be sure to score the bottom of the tomato before blanching - this helps the skins come off easy. Skin them, cut them into quarters and take the seeds and centers out. Throw the whole mess into a crock pot and cook it down for about three hours, let cool, then whip it up in the blender into a puree. Add a pinch of salt but not too much, since it will really concentrate down. Cook down for another 8 hours. I ended up with about 20 oz of puree. It's thick and sticks to the back of a spoon when done. Bag it in 5 oz portions and put it into the freezer.

Tomatoes have some natural preservative qualities, so the will keep in the freezer - and they don‘t take up much room at all. This paste turned out really good, but I used up all of my tomatoes - so I have to go to the store and get another kilo before I can get some great sauce going. Here is my tomato sauce recipe.

1 kilo to fresh tomatoes, skinned and seeded

½ onion

2 cloves garlic

2 TBS oregeno,

1 tbs basil

½ tbs rosemary

1 carrot, 1 stalk celery grated

Red wine or chicken stock or water - whatever is around

5 oz homemade paste

Sautee the veggies and throw it all into a crock pot, cook down for about 8 hours, mashing to tomatoes up for country style, or using a blender to make a smooth sauce for pizza.

And if all else fails, get a good friend to bring you a case of tomato paste from the North!

While GB collects his thoughts for ever-so-many posts, here's The Iron Palate with a swell discovery of a new-to-us tropical fruit: the fabulous chicozapote. I finally took a flyer on these fuzzy-skinned, oblong, brown fruit objects I’ve been seeing in the sooper mart for a while. I had no clue what they were or how to eat them, so I Googled a little bit. Here’s what I found.

Purdue University’s horticulture department describes chicozapotes as the fruit product of the Sapodilla tree, presumed native to Mexico. Grows well in poor soil and adapts to a broad range of elevations and temperature/moisture levels. Cultivated into many varieties, the fruit comes in different shapes and sizes with varying numbers of seeds inside. The chicozapote fruit sold in the Mazatlan market of my choice are oblong with one long, black, shiny seed inside. Very pretty, that seed. When ripe and ready to eat, the fruits are quite soft, and have the slightly grainy texture of a baked apple with a flavor very much like brown sugar. It is Really Good, I’m here to tell you. Purdue says you can either eat the fruit by simply spooning it out of the skin or using it in a fruit salad; or you can stew it with lime and/or ginger; or mix the mashed pulp it into pancake batter, bread dough, and egg custards. The Propane Chef is hankering to mix it with chili and lime and whatever, and use it as a glaze for pork or chicken. So it’s a versatile little fruit.

Three drawbacks to chicozapotes. The Sapodilla tree is a latex tree whose sap is used to make chewing gum, and its unripe fruit is very heavy in this sap and tannin, making it inedible with extreme prejudice. The tannin sucks all the moisture out of your mouth and you have to stick your head under a faucet to rinse out the nastiness. Ask me; I know. The skin retains some tannin even after the fruit is ripe, so although it looks like the skin of a kiwi fruit it is not edible like the skin of a kiwi fruit. And the very pretty seeds are toxic; Purdue says eating more than 6 can cause abdominal cramping and vomiting. I certainly won’t eat them after reading that, but I’ve decided to save the pretty seeds & make primitive art or jewelry out of them. Because it’s something I’ve never had any talent for and I want to frighten GB with Bad Craft Projects. Heh.

I deviate somewhat from my typical chronological posting pattern* to address the issue of how I eat when The Propane Chef is not on site. (At present he is crew on a 40-foot boat he and a professional delivery captain are taking back up Baja to the Los Angeles area. More on that, later.) The Propane Chef always takes very good care of me and when he knows he will be away he does his best to supply me with wholesome, nutritious food choices - for at least the first few days of his absence. (Too bad he expects to be gone 2 weeks or more on this delivery.)

If you ask him why he goes to such effort, GB would just shrug and say, "It's my job."

How delicate.

Truth is, after decades of tolerating my eccentricities peaceful coexistence, GB is very familiar with how I eat when left to my own devices - and my cast-iron palate still horrifies him. I'm sure my usual breakfast of "one-egg-plus-one-egg-white, scrambled" with corn tortillas gets a bit boring to look at day after day, I don't know. Or maybe it's my habit of defining "lunch" as tuna eaten straight out of the foil pouch, chased by a nice banana or some Saltines. A meal of clean protein and carbs, you betcha. I use a fork to eat the tuna so I don't see what's so heinous.

Regardless of how I offend his silver-palate sensibilities, pre-departure The Chef usually brews up some homemade chicken stock for me to use to cook the brown rice I love so much; grills some beef and chicken for a variety of hot and cold meals; and reminds me how to turn on the stove and use a knife. This time was no exception. Bonus: the fridge was full of quality leftovers for me to graze through - such delicacies as one store-bought tamale, a pineapple, avocados and many other veggies. Too many, as it happens: as much as I love avocados, four are a bit much for one human (even one as...ermmm...robust as myself) to consume. Spinach is nice, but here in the tropics in August, it only stays good for, oh, about as long as it takes you to get it home. And so on. My job was to eat as much as I could before it went bad, all the while making nice, healthy meals.**

I believe I succeeded, though my product in no way approaches the quality or visual appeal of The Chef's output. Here now, as proof to The Propane Chef and all of cyberspace that I can actually prepare food that's good and good for me, are samples of a few meals I've made all by myself since my man's been gone:

Over here on the left we have that leftover store-bought tamale mentioned above, paired with a wilted spinach salad. Salad includes 1/2 orange, and some pecan halves toasted in honey, cinnamon and cayenne pepper.

Next up, a very large lunchtime salad to use up most of the veggies before the next grocery trip. No surprises here - a bit of grilled chicken, lettuce & spinach, 1/2 avocado, carrots, some brown rice, a Roma tomato. Dressing was balsamic vinegar mixed with honey, fresh nutmeg and red pepper flakes. Photo's somewhere down over there on the right:

Finally, below, a lovely breakfast omelet (one-egg-plus-one-egg-white) with avocado & spinach. Corn tortillas & a Roma tomato on the side. Yes, the omelet broke - thanks for pointing that out, all you eagle-eyed cooking pundits. Next time I'll just use more butter, eh?

Whew. I'm exhausted from all this cooking. So many dishes to wash, too. A couple more days, & I may be back to the Pouch Tuna Diet. At least that way, there's only a fork to wash. Schnort.

* the one with a built-in delay of a month or more. Ahem.

** I really need to start eating clean again. Need to lose a lot of cruiser-boozer fat. What a shame there are still some chips & cookies on the boat, and no witnesses to how I dispose of them. *burp*